WEBVTT - Is it possible to use a leaf blower as a supercharger?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com

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<v Speaker 1>where smart happens. Hi Marshall Brain with today's question. Is

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<v Speaker 1>it possible to build a cheap, do it yourself supercharger

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<v Speaker 1>for your car out of a leafblower? So let's start

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<v Speaker 1>by talking about what a supercharger is. A supercharger is

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<v Speaker 1>something you normally find on high performance street cars or

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<v Speaker 1>race cars or something. It's basically just an air compressor,

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<v Speaker 1>and the idea is for it to compress the air

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<v Speaker 1>going into the engine so that the air inside the

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<v Speaker 1>cylinder is at a higher pressure than it normally would be.

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<v Speaker 1>And since there's more air in the cylinder, you can

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<v Speaker 1>put more gas in the cylinder and burn it and

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<v Speaker 1>get more power out of an engine. So, if you

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<v Speaker 1>have a normally aspirated engine an engine without a supercharger,

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<v Speaker 1>it can process a certain amount of gasoline and produce

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<v Speaker 1>a certain amount of power. Because of the amount of

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<v Speaker 1>air that gets into each cylinder. If you were to

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<v Speaker 1>double the amount of air in each cylinder, then you

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<v Speaker 1>can burn twice as much gas and the engine can

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<v Speaker 1>produce in theory, twice as much power, and it can

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<v Speaker 1>do that even though the engine really hasn't gained that

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<v Speaker 1>much weight. You know, normally you would have to double

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<v Speaker 1>the size of the engine to get double the power. Here,

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<v Speaker 1>you add the supercharger, which is a fairly small piece

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<v Speaker 1>of equipment, and you double the power of the engine.

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<v Speaker 1>So you really increase the power to weight ratio of

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<v Speaker 1>that engine quite a bit. Okay, so I've been interrupted

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<v Speaker 1>here by someone in the background who's asking what the

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<v Speaker 1>differences between a supercharger and a turbocharger. So a supercharger

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<v Speaker 1>gets its power usually from a belt that's attached to

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<v Speaker 1>the engine, so the engine is directly powering the air compressor.

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<v Speaker 1>In a turbocharger, there's a turbine that's attached to the

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<v Speaker 1>exhaust system, so the flow of exhaust gases is what

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<v Speaker 1>provides the power for the air compressor in that case.

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<v Speaker 1>And there are advantages and disadvantages to the two different systems.

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<v Speaker 1>But supercharging is a very popular and common way to

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<v Speaker 1>boost the performance of an engine by compressing the air

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<v Speaker 1>that goes into it. So the problem with a supercharger

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<v Speaker 1>or a turbocharger is that it's not that easy to

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<v Speaker 1>add one on to an existing engine. They're pretty expensive,

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<v Speaker 1>like thousands of dollars. You have to do a lot

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<v Speaker 1>of plumbing work with the uh intake or the exhaust

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<v Speaker 1>system or both. You have to fit it under the hood,

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<v Speaker 1>which sometimes isn't that easy, and so on. It's a

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<v Speaker 1>it's a big project to add a supercharger or a

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<v Speaker 1>turbo charger to an existing engine, and it's not for

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<v Speaker 1>the faint of heart. So the question here is could

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<v Speaker 1>you use something that's a lot more common and a

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<v Speaker 1>lot less expensive and a lot more readily available, like

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<v Speaker 1>a leaf blower to accomplish the job of a supercharger

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<v Speaker 1>and get more performance out of your engine at a

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<v Speaker 1>low cost. And this question is prompted by the fact

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<v Speaker 1>that a article made the rounds on the internet a

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<v Speaker 1>couple of weeks ago where a guy had taken a

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<v Speaker 1>corvette and he had actually put two leaf blowers on

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<v Speaker 1>it so that he could increase the amount of air

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<v Speaker 1>going into the engine. And this leaf blower supercharger actually

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<v Speaker 1>did seem to work. Now it's not gonna work as

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<v Speaker 1>well as a real supercharger because leaf blowers can only

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<v Speaker 1>produce so much pressure. Uh you might get say one

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<v Speaker 1>pound per square inch one p s I or maybe

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<v Speaker 1>two p s i at the very most out of

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<v Speaker 1>a leaf blower, and that's going to increase engine performance

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<v Speaker 1>by say ten percent, which is nothing to sneeze at

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<v Speaker 1>if you have a two hundred horse power engine. Now

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<v Speaker 1>you have a two horsepower engine. But the interesting thing

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<v Speaker 1>is that it is possible and it does actually work.

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<v Speaker 1>You can spend you know, two hundred dollars on a

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<v Speaker 1>leaf blower, stick it in your engine compartment, increase your

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<v Speaker 1>performance by by ten percent. That's that's not a bad

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<v Speaker 1>trade off. So what are the problems with this idea?

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<v Speaker 1>One problem is that most leaf blowers are incredibly loud

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<v Speaker 1>and noisy, and there's no easy way to solve that problem,

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<v Speaker 1>so you'd have to live with a certain amount of

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<v Speaker 1>noise coming from your blower. The other thing is that

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<v Speaker 1>leaf blowers aren't necessarily made to be super reliable devices,

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<v Speaker 1>and after you use one for a couple of hours

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<v Speaker 1>or a couple of days, it might be that the

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<v Speaker 1>plastic impeller explodes and shoots pieces of plastic into your

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<v Speaker 1>air intake or something like that, but it is nonetheless

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<v Speaker 1>an interesting kind of thought question about producing inexpensive supercharger

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<v Speaker 1>like devices that are either electrically powered or small gas

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<v Speaker 1>engine powered to increase the performance of your engine pretty inexpensively.

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<v Speaker 1>So let's say you were to try this. You go out,

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<v Speaker 1>you buy a leaf blower, You stick it in your

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<v Speaker 1>engine compartment, and run the air outlet of the leaf

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<v Speaker 1>blower into the air intake of your engine, and you

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<v Speaker 1>seal it up so you get a good amount of

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<v Speaker 1>the pressure coming out of the leaf blower going into

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<v Speaker 1>the engine without any leaks. Is it going to actually work?

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<v Speaker 1>And the question there comes down to the computer that's

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<v Speaker 1>controlling your engine, the e c U or the engine

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<v Speaker 1>control unit inside your car. There is a computer that's

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<v Speaker 1>controlling the fuel injectors that are pumping the fuel into

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<v Speaker 1>each of the cylinders, and that e c U can

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<v Speaker 1>be either unsophisticated or sophisticated. A sophisticated one will look

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<v Speaker 1>at the amount of fuel that's going in and the

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<v Speaker 1>amount of oxygen that's coming out in the exhaust stream,

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<v Speaker 1>and it can adjust the amount of fuel depending on

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<v Speaker 1>the amount of air that's coming into the engine. So

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<v Speaker 1>with a sophisticated ECU, what's gonna happen is you blow

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<v Speaker 1>more air into the engine. The e CU detects that

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<v Speaker 1>there's more air available, it pumps more gasoline into the

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<v Speaker 1>cylinder to take advantage of that extra air, and presto,

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<v Speaker 1>you get more performance out of your engine. Automatically. The

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<v Speaker 1>e c U handles the whole thing for you. And

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<v Speaker 1>since there's not that much boost here, you know, one

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<v Speaker 1>or two ps i, there's not that big of a

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<v Speaker 1>change that the e CU is having to handle. If

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<v Speaker 1>you have a less sophisticated ECU, it's not going to

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<v Speaker 1>do that. It doesn't have the mental capacity to look

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<v Speaker 1>at the oxygen coming out in the exhaust stream and

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<v Speaker 1>adjust the fuel and so on, and so you're gonna

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<v Speaker 1>end up with no additional power, probably and possibly with

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<v Speaker 1>a lean fuel mixture in the cylinder, which could cause

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<v Speaker 1>the image engine damage. So you would want to check

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<v Speaker 1>your ECU before you tried this and make sure that

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<v Speaker 1>it's sophisticated enough to handle what you're asking it to do.

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<v Speaker 1>If you do that, and if you take some kind

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<v Speaker 1>of precautions, say a screen or something that's going to

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<v Speaker 1>catch any plastic that gets blown into the engine. If

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<v Speaker 1>the UH leafblower catastrophically fails, then if you're the experimental type,

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<v Speaker 1>this might be a fun experiment to try, just to

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<v Speaker 1>see what would happen. For more on this and thousands

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<v Speaker 1>of other topics, does that how stuff works dot com

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<v Speaker 1>and don't forget to check out the brain stuff blog

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